It’s Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor on Reconfigured Billboard Chart

There’s nothing subtle about it: Taylor Swift simply owns the Billboard
country songs chart this week, partly because of sweeping changes just made in the trade magazine’s chart methodology.

Instead
of reflecting radio airplay only, Billboard‘s country songs chart now also incorporates digital download sales (tracked
by Nielsen SoundScan) and streaming data (from Spotify and others) to determine the weekly chart. One effect of the switch
has been to slice the number of songs listed from 60 to 50.

Not only has Swift’s infectious “We Are Never Ever Getting
Back Together” reached No. 1 after a brief eight-week sprint, her “Red” also debuts at a nose-bleedingly high No. 2 and her
“Ronan” comes on at a very healthy No. 34.

And there’s one more of her sky-bound songs to note. Her “Begin Again,”
which came aboard last week at No. 37, is now at No. 10.

Album wise, Little
Big Town continue to make up for its agonizingly slow career start. The quartet’s Tornado CD continues as the No.
1 and best-selling country album for the fourth straight week.

The week’s other new albums are Blake
Shelton‘s Cheers, It’s Christmas (No. 6 and our first holiday title of the season), Jerrod
Niemann‘s Free the Music (No. 9) and Lindi Ortega’s Cigarettes
Truckstops (No. 71).

Snapping back into the albums chart are Now That’s What I Call Country Ballads
(No. 72, a multi-artist package) and new Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer Mary
Chapin Carpenter‘s Ashes and Roses (No. 73).